Anton Chekhov - Stories from 1888

This post gives a summary of the stories, novellas (if any) and plays of Anton Chekhov from 1888. If you know of things which should be added, please let me know.

Short stories

• "The Beauties"
  
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1732
  
  
  
• "At a Country House"
  
  
  Note:
  The date for this story is unknown. Wikipedia gives 1888-1895.
  
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13418
  
  
  
• "Attack of Nerves"
  
  
  Summary:
  This story concerns the dilemma posed by the recognition that there is large scale human suffering in the world which the individual is powerless to alter.
  
  http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=29
  
  
• "An Awkward Business"
  
  
  Summary:
  This story illustrates both a conflict of conscience and a conflict between social classes.
  
  http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=959
  
  
  
• "Lights"
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13414
  
  
  
• "A Nervous Breakdown"
  
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1732
  
  
  
• "No Comment"
  
  Text in "Early Stories".
  
  
• "The Party"
  
  
  Note:
  Also "The Name-Day Party"
  
  
  Summary:
  A story about the wife of a lawyer who have a party one night at their estate by a lake. While she was busy as a hostess, he flirted with the female guests, hurting her feelings. Towards the end of the story it is revealed that she is very pregnant. She delivers a still-born baby the next day.
  
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13413
  
  
  
• "The Shoemaker and the Devil"
  
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1732
  
  
  
• "Sleepy"
  
  Note:
  Also, "Let me Sleep".
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13417
  
  
  
• "A Story WIthout a Title"
  
  
  Summary:
  Story of visitor to an isolated monastery. He criticizes the hospitable monks, telling them they should try to save the people in the local town who were sinning from ignorance. This stirred the Father Superior to go out into the town for 3 months. Shocked, he returned to the monastery to tell the monks of his experiences. He described drunken debauchry and widespead sinning. When he finished, he went to his cell to sleep. The next morning, he discovered that all the other monks had left the monastery to live in the town.
  
  
  Audio:
  Read by Kenneth Branagh on
  youtube.
  
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13409
  
  
  
• "An Unpleasantness"
  
  
  Note:
  Missing from Wikipedia. Appeared in [Y].
  
  
  Summary:
  A relatively long (23p) story of a hospital physician who strikes his assistant with his fist. He must deal with his own anger issues in the process. In the end, no one is fired and life goes on as before.
  
  
  
• "The Wife"
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1883
  
  
  
• "A Woman's Kingdom"
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13413
  
  
  

Plays

• The Bear
  
  Note:
  A one act comedy
  
  Also "The Boor"
  
  Summary:
  http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=1080
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7986
  
  
• 
  A Marriage Proposal
  
  Note:
  A one act play. Written 1888-1889.
  Also "The Proposal"
  
  Text:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7986
  
  

Novellas

• The Steppe
  
  Text:
  http://www.online-literature.com/donne/1249/
  
  Summary:
  http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/chekhov/section12.rhtml
  
  

References

[C] A. Chekhov

• biography on Wikipedia
  
• bibliography on Wikipedia
  
• Short story list on Wikipedia
  
• text of stories of Anton Chekhov on gutenberg.org
  

[Y] Avrahm Yarmolinsky (translator and editor), The Unknown Chekhov, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.
[Y'] Avrahm Yarmolinsky (Introduction), The Portable Chekhov, Penguin, 1977.